This invention relates to swimming pool and spa maintenance equipment, and more particularly to an apparatus for gripping a water test kit.
While swimming pools and spas afford hours of pleasure, exercise, and relaxation, they also require hours of periodic maintenance in order to preserve healthful and attractive water quality. The required maintenance includes cleaning the pool (i.e. skimming the water surface and vacuuming the bottom), but also includes chemically treating the water to ensure that it remains chemically balanced (e.g. maintains proper chlorine, pH, Total Alkalinity, Calcium Hardness, and bromine levels).
In order to properly treat the water, it is necessary to chemically test it to determine its existing condition. Inexpensive test kits are widely available for this purpose, and typically include a clear plastic housing having a plurality of empty tubes for receiving water samples from the pool or spa. Different test kits are available for testing different chemical levels, but basic commonly available test kits comprise a tube for determining the pH level of the water, and a second tube for determining the chlorine level of the water. Once water samples have been received into each of the tubes, a pH reagent is introduced into the sample in the pH tube and a chlorine reagent is introduced into the sample in the chlorine tube. Then, each tube is capped, and the entire housing is shaken to mix each water sample with its added reagent.
Adjacent to each of the respective tubes is a column having graduated color coded sections corresponding to particular pH or chlorine levels, simulating the possible color range of the column's corresponding water sample after mixing with the reagent. To determine the pH level of the water in the pool, the color of the water sample in the pH tube is compared with the corresponding pH column to find the section of the column most closely matching the color of the sample, and thus the pH level of the sample. A similar matching process is conducted with respect to the chlorine water sample and associated chlorine column.
In order to test the pool water in the manner above described, one must first obtain water samples in the plastic housing tubes of the test kit. Since the kit is designed to be hand-held, this requires users to drop to their hands and knees, roll up their sleeves, and extend the arm holding the test kit into the water. Ideally, the sample is taken from a location several feet deep and as close to the center of the pool as possible, in order to ensure that the sample is representative of the water in the pool. However, this is difficult to do in a large pool, and necessitates reaching one's arm into the water up to the shoulder level. Older people, or those who have bad backs or are otherwise physically disabled, may thus have difficulty obtaining an adequate water sample.
Unfortunately, even for those who are healthy, the inconvenience and unpleasantness involved in conducting such a test procedure, and particularly in obtaining an adequate water sample, causes many people to test their pool or spa too infrequently or not at all, often resulting in deficient water quality. This problem is exacerbated when the weather is cool or inclement, which tends to magnify the discomfort of the person obtaining the water samples. Consequently, the water may become chemically unbalanced and thus appear cloudy and discolored, and may even pose a health risk.
What is needed, therefore, is a better means for collecting a representative water sample from a pool or spa, so that the testing procedure will be simpler and thus more regularly performed by pool or spa owners.